Question of the Night: Will Gun Control Advocates Use the Fort Hood Shooting to Deny Veterans Their Gun Rights?

We now know the Fort Hood shooter was undergoing psychiatric treatment and taking psych meds for his condition. Will gun control advocates try to exploit this tragedy to further their agenda? Will they try to deny veterans their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms, arguing that any veteran who seeks psychiatric help should not be able to exercise that right? Will they then continue their crusade to suggest – as National Gun Victims Counsel CEO Elliot Fineman did during a recent debate – that anyone taking any medicine for anxiety or other mental health challenge should not be able to keep or bear arms? How do you counter that assault on the basic human right to self-defense?

I think you are right. I think there are a lot of paranoid schizos who get a 5 minute eval and get prescribed SSRIs and ambien to control anxiety and insomnia from “PTSD”, when they are actually nuts. Then they go on a shooting rampage and people think that the meds made them violent. I’m not buying it. People who take ambien to sleep between missions out of the normal sleep cycle don’t seem to get violent (well, unless it’s part of the mission). people who take SSRIs for fibromyalgia don’t seem to get violent.

Vets are already denied their gun rights! Aren’t all bases here in the U.S. “gun free” zones, excepting MPs and a few others? Soldiers already cannot carry guns to defend themselves or their fellow soldiers on U.S. military bases. What farther restrictions are possible? That they can’t carry a gun anytime? Someone ought to sue in defense of the Second Amendment, if such proposals gain momentum among the anti-Second Amendment idiots which as far as I have been able to ascertain are all Democrats.

The antis have been waiting with baited breath for a chance to disarm what represents their most hated adversary- ex military and veterans.

You see, there is no accepted place in the socialist utopia for men and women who keep arms for defense of the community. Every man and woman in uniform represents a walking, living reminder that their philosophy is void.

Conincidentally, veterans represent people most dedicated to the defense of the Constitution as it’s written, which is again incompatible with the Great Socialist Plan.

Disarming this category of society represents both a philosophical and practical goal for the opposition, which is why we cannot permit it to happen. We may not be able to do much about the circus on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, but Congress is where lasting damage can be done. We should remember there are many antis there who would use this incident as a fulcrum.

“Will they then continue their crusade to suggest – as National Gun Victims Counsel’s Elliot Fineman CEO did during a recent debate – that anyone taking any medicine for anxiety or other mental health challenge should not be able to keep or bear arms?”

The day they apply that to law enforcement orders, is the day I will believe that the mental health question is a valid concern of theirs. As to the question of the day, yes, of course!

Reasons like this are why I would be worried about seeking help if I needed it in the future. They want to remove the stigma from seeking help, yet the act of seeking help could cause you to lose your gun rights or more.

Sooo…. you wouldn’t receive help that could potentially prevent a violent encounter in the future because you don’t want to lose your right to bear arms? You would rather risk jail time, or yours or someoneelses injuries instead of get help just to own a gun?

I’m not talking about homicidal or suicidal issues. I am more talking about depression, counseling or other problems that shouldn’t require you to lose your firearms. If some of the anti’s had their way they would have your guns removed because you said you were sad, once. I would look for other ways to deal with it and I have in the past. I went through a divorce and my job really sucked during the same time frame. What worked to reverse the depression was a change of diet and exercise. Diet and exercise will go a long way to help your mental state over popping a bunch of pills with side effects that are worse than the symptoms.

Nobody’s mentioned it yet, because it’s so bloody taboo, but Cannabis can work wonders where PTSD, or just stress in general is involved, by alleviating a lot of the tensions and generally relaxing the person, It also has the benefit of making its user peaceful, and less likely to go bonkers.

But I still say that Shall Not Be Infringed means Shall Not Be Infringed, and the proper way to deal with drug-crazed thugs is the same as the proper way to deal with “normal” thugs, and drugs or emotional state or motive shouldn’t have anything to do with anything. If anyone, even high on drugs, is incompetent to follow the simple rules: Don’t Hit People and Don’t Take Their Stuff. then they shouldn’t be allowed on the streets unsupervised.

But making the use of drugs a criminal offense, or using your alleged mental state as a justification for infringing your rights leads us right down the slippery slope to the black hole of tyranny.

If all vets who have PSTD are disarmed by policy, the rate at which PSTD is diagnosed will skyrocket as soon as the policy is in place. Soon, pretty much all combat vets will be disarmed until they can prove that they don’t have PSTD.

Meanwhile, if you want to keep your property, when the doc asks you how you feel, the only answer is “great, thanks for asking!” Of course, if you say that after a recent trauma, they’ll just say you are repressing your feelings, prescribe you meds, and take your firearms anyway. And the people making boatloads of money off psychiatric drugs will continue raking it in.

One of the hallmarks of PTSD is rapid swings in emotional state, calm to screaming in your face in seconds. Sufferers really can snap. They need help, but disarmers taking advantage of a bad situation will only make things worse. But I’m not saying anything new. This particular alarm has been sounded loudly and often.

There are a lot of 2A supporters that think that a criminally insane person should not have a gun. I’m one of them, but I also know that the government will really over-generalize if we give them this one. The next thing you know they’ll tell us that any counseling for any mental health concern should take away your gun rights.

Why should someone who is still “criminally insane” be out of lawful custody so that they would be able to get a firearm in the first place? You see, if they are truly still criminally insane then government (and any legal guardian) is negligent for allowing someone like that out of custody.

We say that and it’s clever, rhetorically, and it’s probably even sound logically. Still, there’s a practical element here. We simply cannot afford to lock up everyone who might be dangerous. Neither can we simply let loose in society without sanction those who’ve committed certain offenses in the past. The public will demand something in between for these in between cases.

Taking the guns may not be right, but it is something in between, which is what the public is looking for. Arguing for either incarceration/institutionalization or release with full restoration of right misses the point of satisfying that demand for an in between option. You won’t get the public to agree to stop taking the guns in these cases unless you provide them with an alternative in between option.

This is not a pure democracy. If that many want this then a constitutional amendment is the way for them to go about it. Anything less is supporting government theft and tyranny. A movement to amend the Constitution puts politicians on public record and lays it all out in the open. This is one of the many reasons that the process exists and is the only legitimate way to get around the 2A. Trying to appease this amorphous “hearts and minds” of the “masses” is an impossible task and is doomed to see ever further usurpation of power by government. It will never end by trying to sway public opinion about core constitutional issues. That isn’t how our constitutional government is supposed to work. You and many others are trying to operate outside of the constitutional framework established for our government.

So, instead of following a lost trajectory, why not do the right thing and insist that government follow the verbatim restrictions placed upon it by the Second Amendment? Your way of handling things thus far will never end in favor of constitutional government. Far too much history proves that very point.

Or even just marriage/couples counseling. After all, if a domestic assault, or even just a restraining order, is sufficient to yank not only your license, but your guns themselves, then it’s just being practive out of an abundance of caution to confiscate the guns if you two seek relationship therapy.

If she can never recall how long she’s been driving with the “check engine” light on and he always forgets to put the toilet seat down, and neither one can communicate without couching claims in terms of “always” and “never”, then clearly they’re pushing redline on an imminent murder-suicide and must be disarmed.

While it is a perfectly logical argument that criminals, and especially the criminally insane, should not have firearms, the question remains unanswered: “How are you going to stop them?” They are criminals, and/or they are insane. You may make it difficult for them to purchase weapons the same as anybody else by passing a bunch of laws that make otherwise harmless people into criminals for selling to them, but they can, do and will always find a source of weapons if they truly feel the need. You could write and pass laws more complex and more pages than Obamacare and you would STILL not change this truth.

If you for one minute think that just because someone was a convicted felon and has now been released from custody they are not carrying a concealed weapon because it is illegal for them to by one at the LGS and they cannot pass a background check or get a concealed carry permit, you are delusional.

The ONLY effective way to deny weapons to criminals and the insane is for citizens to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms and to confront and unconditionally disarm the Bad Guy or Crazy Guy the instant he produces a weapon and attempts to use it in the commission of a crime.

Barring government interference, you are born with the right to bear arms and you keep that right up until the moment you die. That being the case, there is only one way to ensure that criminals and the insane lose their RKBA, and government infringements ain’t it.

” How do you counter that assault on the basic human right to self-defense?”

Legally and morally, the only form of control that any government should be allowed to exert over people is to restrict overt, observable, tangible harmful (to other people) behavior. Regardless of whether the guy’s wackadoodles, it’s no matter – if he commits no criminal acts, what is their problem? If he does, he’s simply a common criminal just like any other common criminal, sober, drunk, zonked out, crazy, or whatever notwithstanding.

Rather, I wonder how many of the psuedo-2A “supporters” will play right along and agree with gun control measures based upon seeking psychiatric care, psychiatric diagnosis, and/or taking psychiatric drugs. 🙁

Personally I would deny psychiatric drugs to gun owners, but not the other way around. But I also think the link between psychiatric drugs and people suddenly going criminally insane is no coincidence.

Yep. Add this to the many ways this country has done a fabulous job giving it to our vets up the ass.
I’m glad more people weren’t hurt, and I’m sorry that four people ended up dead over what sounds like a regular old argument. But I’m even more sorry that this will serve to further galvanize people who want our vets disarmed, which will further discourage those vets that could use the help from getting what they need.
I know I don’t have the answers, but it’s plain as birdshit on a window that none of the players on the public scene are even in the same zipcode as one.

Q. “Question of the Night: Will Gun Control Advocates Use the Fort Hood Shooting to Deny Veterans Their Gun Rights?.”

A. Is that even a valid question anymore, Farago? Seriously? Seriously? They stand atop the huddled, bullet-ridden corpses of every shooting victim in America (the vast majority of them being criminal types but you know this by now) for their blood-soaked soap boxes, and haul their corpses up by the scruff to use them as meat shields every single time there is a tragedy.

I’ve long divorced myself of the illusion that they’re simply ignorant of the destruction of their asinine and ass-backwards policies. They damned-well know that they unequivocally own every single one of those deaths, and are fully cognizant of that incontrovertible fact. Them and every single one of their supporters, public and private. It’s beyond shameful. It’s shameless. They still and will always want what makes them feel better, regardless of the costs to themselves and everyone around them. All of them would literally rather stand by and watch as their loved ones — and especially yours — are brutalized or even murdered to even so much as lift a hand to defend them, much less ever admit to themselves or anybody else that they were ever wrong.

They want more innocent men, women, and especially children to die. That, and that alone, is the only logical explanation.

Doctors prescribe anti-depressants for premature ejaculation. The meds give an average guy porn star quality control. I’m not giving up my guns, so they are going to have to fight with my wife if they want me to stop taking my meds to keep my guns.

Well to my knowledge no .45 Smith made yet has a flush fit factory capacity greater than 10. So that wish should be granted. I’ll wager a 1911 in all actuality but the M&P holds 10 out of the box. So…a small boon in a shit storm.

While we all know the answer to the question is absolutely they will try and use it as a way to disarm anyone and everyone they can, I think the real question should be why if this person got to the point of being so unstable were they not doing more to try and help?

All to often we have people coming back from war zones with disorders due to the stress they deal with and are not able to handle very well. I think George Carlin said it best when he talked about “Shell Shock” and if you have never heard it read it here: http://www.iceboxman.com/carlin/pael.php#track14
“There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to it’s absolute peak and maximum. Can’t take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago. ”

Now we have distanced ourselves to call it PTSD. . . just so the Doctors can gives us happy little feelings while they blow smoke up their patients butts rather than give them the help and support they need. Those people who have went through stressful combat situations are brought home given minimal support and some pills and told they need to get along with life all the while the government is cutting benefits and telling them there is nothing wrong.

It’s time to start fixing the system and helping those people who need it most.

No politician will try to fix the system. About a dozen bills have been introduced at the Federal level and CT has had useless commission of over 20 people “looking” at the problem for 14 months since Sandy Hook and yet have released no report or recommendation. The answer is that more time and more money will be required and more importantly to politicians, their are not enough campaign donors in mental health so they do not give a crap. In the late 70s and early 80s the democrats dismantled the system and the ACLU has helped to keep it broken. The general public is indifferent, does not care or has been trained to blame guns versus the person who committed the act. As far as the military is concerned, there are not enough vets in congress to make help a priority.

Given the way things work these days, unless the family member of some celebrity is involved in one of these incidents, it will not get the level of visibility it should in the media and thus politicians will do nothing to address the problem and I have faith in current military leadership.

They will push. But it will also become obvious if they push too hard that they’ll expose the fact that guns are under lock and key on base. Average America doesn’t really think that guns aren’t at ready access on military bases or in forts. They imagine some defcon 1 situation and weapon presentation drills and instant mobilization. Not towns where everyone is dressed in camo pretending to be a civilian with not a firearm to be found.

Thank you for the link to my page as it brought me to yours. This is a sad and all too common of a story that is centered on mental health. We need to remove the negative stigma surrounding those who have the courage to seek help. And although he was seeking treatment and it’s reported he was taking medication I’d imagine there is a lot more to this story. Our system let down many people at Fort Hood, including the shooter and his family left behind; which, in no way diminishes the lives tragically taken at his hands though.http://www.killingmycareer.com/the-sociopathic-business-model/fort-hood-is-failing-and-so-is-america/

Guys. Firstly we all must offer our sympathy for the victim’s families.

Next we all need to isolate this event and not even get into a discussion of whether rights should be restricted or not. Obama and his cronies are on a warpath for all and any person who owns or wishes to own a gun. We need to remain focused and supportive with rational arguments and statements that support our cause.

The powers are trying to place us in all in a box labelled – crazy, dangerous guns fools. Let’s make sure they end being the fools when they are voted out at the next chance we have.

The push to prohibit the “dangerously mentally ill” from owning guns is a frightening gray area. Think about the intensity of grief that anyone feels when a loved one dies. I can foresee a world in which the government chases ambulances to build the no-fly list.

This morning on Fox and Friends the crew took up the issue of our “armed” services bases as gun free zones and described the bases as, and I quote, “shooting galleries” and the service personnel therein as “sitting ducks”.

They finished up asking for someone to explain why Bill Clinton turned these “armed” services bases into gun free zones when most everyone in them is trained in the use of arms.

Personal opinion – If I was a dictator and feared the military as the only entity that could take my unlimited power away from me I would do exactly the same thing. Lock up the guns.

If a human is determined to hunt fellow humans, it is an extremely dangerous and desperate situation, period.

Let’s say that firearms are somehow not available to such a “hunter”. He/she can fashion a garrote wire weapon and silently kill as many people as desired. The only limiting factor in that scenario would be stealth. Instead of walking into a crowd, the attacker would have to apply their method to lone, single victims which is exceedingly easy to do. Alternatively, a spree killer could apply a knife or sword or even a pipe in much the same way.

Let’s say that neither firearms nor wire, knives, swords, nor pipes are available to a spree killer. He/she can drive their car at high speed into a crowd of people and instantly kill dozens of people and injure many more. And I haven’t even touched on the possibilities with poison yet. Anyone remember the Tylenol event in the 1980s? To this day no one knows who that killer was/is. (You can find more information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders)

The only limit to the number of ways that a spree killer can harm people is the spree killer’s imagination. It is utterly and totally impossible to somehow regulate or make unavailable all the possible methods. The only sensible solutions is armed good people.

Yes, yes, yes, and you cannot effectively counter kneejerk emotional pleas for more gun control. Best advice, keep a low profile wait for it to blow over, the news creeps will be back to the missing plane and the wonderfulness of Obamacare in a week.

@Ben…As a vet I absolutely would avoid getting help for mental health issues if I believed it would rob me of my right to bear arms; if it would prevent me from participating in one of the few activities that actually gives me joy in life. i can’t see how losing something I take joy in forever would make me LESS suicidal?

1. Commanding General from Ft. Hood uses the term “Lor Enforcement Officers”. A common vernacular for the Chicago Union Thugs that Obama is using to replace top commanders in the U.S. Army.

2. The Ft. Hood shooter (Ivan Lopez) was a”34 year old U.S. Army Specialist”.
a. Specialist rank is at the bottom of the NCO corps. Equivalent to that of the Corporal, but without command responsibilities. There are few Specialist in the U.S. Military; even fewer over the age of 25.
b. The U.S. Army has age limits. Thirty-two is the cutoff from enlisted and Forty-two is the cutoff for individuals with specialized training… and they are usually Officer’s Corps.
c. A 34 year old Specialist is one that either can’t get promoted or has seen the higher rank and been demoted (possibly more than once). Spending time in a CZ would help promotion under most situations.

3. Thousands of Soldiers have spent years in Combat Zones before starting to have “Issues” with being deployed. This guy had only served 4 months in a Combat Zone and came home telling his friends that he had suffered “Head Traumas”. The Specialist Rank does not go into areas where combat occurs because it is a “Non-Combat MOS”. The U.S. Army does not waste money sending someone for 4 months…. it is either 12, 18, or extended.

4. Ft. Hood General does not want to release the name of the shooter because his “Next of Kin” have not been notified. This is usually reserved for someone that you want to respect; not a cold blooded killer that just murdered innocent people. Only an Obama appointed Union Thug from Chicago would think this guy was a victim.

“Will Gun Control Advocates Use the Fort Hood Shooting to Deny Veterans Their Gun Rights?”

Of course they will; that’s as certain as death and taxes. What I’m interested to see is HOW they will make their argument. The shooter was an active duty member of the Army. As we know, they profess that only the military and police forces have the training to properly handle and use firearms. The two previous statements are directly contradictory to each other. Further, as was pointed out earlier, the post was, as all military installations are, a “Gun Free Zone”, a concept which has again, predictably and tragically, proven to be worthless.

Our government needs to stop cutting military benefits every time they need to fix the budget. Improve the care of soldiers and their families. If the politicians want to cut something let them start with their pay first.

Or somehow get some sane person to end the assault, which is accomplishing nothing but costing lives and billions and billions of dollars. Does anybody even know what they’re supposed to be trying to accomplish?

The thing that bothers me is that so many people automatically assume you have some form of PTSD or a TBI when you tell them your a veteran. While it’s is true that many veterans have scars that will remain unseen, there are veterans who keep pushing to lead a normal and sucsseful life. For all the veterans out there, if you need help, get it, it won’t make you any less of a person, or any less of a warrior. Getting help can simply mean calling your best friend or significant other and talking out what your feeling or what’s been goin on.

Do you think the fusion centers and people who run background checks DONT have access to military health records? Or civilian? Only if you believe the NSA hasnt been collecting your metadata from the telcos or Google hasnt been scanning your gmail. Like…if you believe in unicorns.

So the ambitious or upward bound soldier of course avoids treatment if he can and needs that Top Secret or higher for that next job.

If the gun-grabbrr in chief decides to execute his direction via the Director of this or the VA that then who is going to stop him?

Forgot poor confused Chuck Hagel. SECDEF…yeah. I feel better now.
Nope the only way things will change is spread the truth and starting with the gun free zone and shooting gallery memes at Fox. Pass it along. Let our soldiers defend themselves on base just as we citizens are gradually reclaiming our 2A rights outside.

Another reason not to take that overprescribed sh1t. Million of people on psychoactive drugs would be better off with a friend or a friendly bartender to talk to, rather than dosing themselves with that poison.

You know, as much as I say that a lot of people don’t understand depression and that it can’t be “toughed through” or “snapped out of” or overcome by ‘manning up’ – I have to really agree with you there.

IF medication really helps, its like a 20%/80% mix, where the 80% is friends, family, support, and people.

I’m a real skeptic on SSRIs for all types of depression, (it does help some, it seems.) yet docs seem to see it as a one-shot wunderpill. Overprescribed is right. What used to be aided by family and friends is now covered by prescription.

“Prescribe, and send you on your way.”

Insult is added to injury when the side effects of SSRIs (or, more likely, missing a dose) is compounded by doctors who think they don’t have to do any of the doctor->patient interaction they used to, because the pill is supposed to take care of that.

So the effects of the pill are compounded by the absence of said ‘bartender’.

But we’re not gonna address that, we’re just going to make guns harder to buy. Ok then.

Seems to me that the Army needs to raise recruiting and retention standards. Most mass shooters are nutcases. The Army has been retaining too many nutcases simply because they have had a hard time recruiting and retaining people.

As for the popularly prescribed SSRIs and sleeping aids, seems very likely that Army shrinks are too quick to prescribe the same thing over and over and too slow to find root causes. Seems to me that SSRIs and ambien are routinely prescribed to some people who really need treatment for more serious illnesses and need not be in the Army.

And yes, anti-gunners will ALWAYS find a reason to try to restrict rights.

Gun free zones didn’t work for the first Ft Hood shooting, the Navy Yard shooting, the second Ft Hood shooting, it didn’t work when DC was the murder capital of the world (it has gotten better only because gentrification pushed a lot of crime into PG county), and it hasn’t worked for about 500 kids every year shot in Chicago walking through “gun free zones” on their way to and from school.